GTA 5 lost "that GTA feel"?

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CryptReaperDorian
110

CryptReaperDorian 110

With just about every major GTA release, R* makes changes that makes the new game feel almost-entirely separate from the last game. The same goes for GTA V. However, the reason why GTA V is singled out is likely due to its newly-implemented features. You see, when R* added new features to older GTA titles, they generally did something that no other developers were doing. R* ended up taking far more outside influences than with previous titles.

For instance, I have yet to see another AAA budget game with GTA IV's level of vehicle crash physics and AI reactions to impacts (Euphoria is more than just simple ragdolls, it's a "simulated" nervous and psychological system). Meanwhile, with GTA V, the changes that are seen are pretty "mainstreamed" by most other AAA developers. Of course, I'm talking about the likes of regenerative health, special character abilities, and a low TTK (Time To Kill). I actually feel that a high TTK suits GTA much better. GTA IV still allowed you to dispatch AI very quickly with a single well-placed headshot, but it also allowed players to utilize the slower method if they want (whether to torture or just simply incapacitate, not kill, the AI). However, I do feel that GTA EFLC's combat was inferior to vanilla GTA IV's combat. GTA TLAD has even clunkier movement than the vanilla game. GTA TBOGT is slightly less clunkier in terms of movement, but the added feature of the player's auto-aim breaking away from an incapacitated AI ruined a bit of the pace in what's supposed to be the fastest-paced story of the GTA IV Trilogy (it screws up the target switching almost entirely). GTA V's combat seems to have been more geared towards a sort of "competitive" online component, but even then, its combat still falls way too short to be considered as such. In addition to the low TTK, the weapon balance isn't good, the first-person mode is clunky on consoles, the third-person shoulder aim is way too far off to the right, there's no shoulder-switch button as there is in Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3, auto-aim is still way to prevalent in the multiplayer, and so many other issues.

That's not to say that all of the "mainstreamed" features are bad, though. The weapon and radio wheels have been long overdue! If those existed in GTA SA and GTA IV (kind of does in the latter, but in a not-so-well-known and more archaic form), that'd have just been an extra button freed up for an additional feature. That's a godsend.

As mentioned earlier, GTA IV's reward system was pretty crap, but so is GTA V's. You literally get over 95% of your campaign money from a single heist while most other missions don't even net you a single penny, and most of the side stuff gives you zilch also. The only good side rewards are the $2,100,000 from the Epsilon missions and the Space Docker from finding all the UFO parts. The "rewards" for finding all the submarine pieces and letter scraps is a total dick-slap to the player. In contrast, GTA SA gave you a significant reward for completing almost-literally every side activity. There is actual worth in getting all gold medals in the schools in GTA SA.

And yeah, GTA Online is essentially Saints Row: The Turd. Even the splendid Saints Row 2 (still the best in the franchise) hasn't jumped the shark THAT much. GTA SA? GTA SA has the common courtesy to keep the downright absurdity to cheat codes.

GTA V is great, but I do feel some of the negative influences from the lesser-received online portion may have tainted the core experience. GTA V came out a little over five years after GTA IV, but it was so ambitious that it could have used even more time to flesh out some aspects of gameplay, story, and overall design. Of course, any longer, considering five years is an eternity for video gaming, and the community would have probably burnt down R*'s HQ. So, I will give R* the benefit of doubt that GTA V's reputation (separate from financial success) among the fans was perhaps on a slippery slope since beginning.

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Gnocchi Flip Flops
26,228

Gnocchi Flip Flops 26,228

V is perfect. Rockstar did an excellent job, as always, save for IV. Don't even try and tell me that IV felt like a proper GTA game. No planes, grey, samey, boring missions. V was them listening to their fanbase. And now they've done a great job haven't day? It's not like they tried to appeal to the masses to make a quick buck, doing half assed jobs on content and then avoiding SP to charge 40 bucks for a mediocre car right?

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tnz1992
27

tnz1992 27

It still feels like GTA, however it got toned down a lot and was too easy. Franklin is supposed to be the main character, but I could not connect with him whatsoever, it was impossible to relate to him. Trevor and Michael felt like real deep characters, and I can't say the same for Franklin or the rest of the cast. If you take away Trevor and Michael storyline the rest is very dull, even to this day I can't say who was the real villain, because I had no reason to hate anyone. It seemed like Martin Madrazo was gonna be the bad guy, but nope, let's sign a peace treaty and never see each other again.

GTA IV was not perfect either, however it had more attention to small details, e.g vehicle damage was amazing, but it didn't make to V. Los Santos and Blaine County over Liberty City is a huge improvment, but overall GTA V has preferred quantity over quality in my book on everything else. Sure it could have been easily improved with updates or DLC, additional storyline missions and what not, however GTA Online ruined that. Imagine if you had 3-4 years worth of single player updates instead of online, it could have been amazing.

All of this makes me concerned for the future GTA installments, because online portion has became a cash cow for them, it seems they don't care about single player fanbase anymore, at some point they will release RDR2 (and GTA VI), and only updates you will receive is going to be for online mode, just like GTA V did. Mark my words.

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ChiroVette
2,763

ChiroVette 2,763

One thing I want to mention about V is how bad it was getting Franklin's mansion.

Since VC, getting a luxurious property required you to have a massive shoot-out in the luxurious property and exterminate the current owner, making it a ''GTA Thing To Do''.

I remember when I owned the Vercetti Estate, Madd Dogg's Mansion and Playboy X's Penthouse, I felt great and I felt like I earned it.

However, when I got Franklin's mansion, I felt only good and not great as all I had to do was simply snipe a guy in the head to get it.

Apples and oranges. First off the Vercetti mansion is an asset property, not just a mansion, and acquiring it from Diaz was a large part of the trigger for the Vercetti Estate missions. A great deal of the plot of Vice City revolved around that mansion. In V, Franklin's Vinewood Hills house is just a house, nothing more. Its a place to sleep (save your game if you want) and change clothes, nothing more. It is a last stop in The Big Score, but the house itself contributes nothing to the mission other than meeting up there. Ownership of that home in Vinewood Hills also serves to put Franklin into Lester's debt and is a plot point for why he continues doing assassination missions for the man.

Again, though, its just a house. Nothing more, nothing less. Just as the game starts out with Michael in his mansion with the family, the game gives the house to Franklin fairly early on.

It still feels like GTA, however it got toned down a lot and was too easy.

I disagree that it is too easy on the grounds that ALL GTA games are easy. Anyone who has more than 5 minutes experience with the basic gameplay mechanics of GTA can get through ANY GTA game and all of its missions very easily. Rockstar has never been a developer that sought to make their GTA games difficult. V is not more or less difficult than any other GTA game.

Franklin is supposed to be the main character, but I could not connect with him whatsoever, it was impossible to relate to him. Trevor and Michael felt like real deep characters, and I can't say the same for Franklin or the rest of the cast. If you take away Trevor and Michael storyline the rest is very dull, even to this day I can't say who was the real villain, because I had no reason to hate anyone. It seemed like Martin Madrazo was gonna be the bad guy, but nope, let's sign a peace treaty and never see each other again.

These are very subjective things, of course. Nothing wrong with that, because entertainment is subjective to begin with. But I have no difficulty connecting with Franklin. As for the villains, this is one of the things I REALLY enjoyed about V. The fact that Rockstar gave ALL THREE protagonists their own enemies and wove them beautifully into the plot and the game. Trevor Had Wei Cheng, he eliminated The Lost, and he first turned Medrazzo into an enemy then made peace. He also took out the Azteca's for business reasons, and there was the lol O'Neil Brothers. Franklin had Stretch and Devon, and Michael had Steve Haines, though admittedly he and Franklin shared Weston as a common enemy.

GTA IV was not perfect either, however it had more attention to small details, e.g vehicle damage was amazing, but it didn't make to V.

Vehicle damage was better in IV. If I had to guess, I suppose Rockstar decided to focus on other things. I honestly don't think that meticulously crafted vehicle deforming is that important in a game. Yes, its cool, but developers have to decide what they will choose to focus their attention on, and to be frank, V's attention to detail is pretty amazing. I just think that not everything gets the same level of priority when a development team is developing a game. Even a development team like Rockstar has a finite amount of time and console/PC resources to focus on. So a feature or two that one game may excel in shouldn't be construed as that feature needing to be preserved in a subsequent game with a new engine. Focus has to be narrowed, and I suspect Rockstar thought that vehicle damage was not nearly as important as some of the other things in the game.

Los Santos and Blaine County over Liberty City is a huge improvment, but overall GTA V has preferred quantity over quality in my book on everything else. Sure it could have been easily improved with updates or DLC, additional storyline missions and what not, however GTA Online ruined that. Imagine if you had 3-4 years worth of single player updates instead of online, it could have been amazing.

The DLC and updates I completely agree with, but I think that V is a HUGE improvement on not only quantity but quality as well. Particularly going from IV to V. In my opinion, IV is a game that has very little quantity, and its focus is on things that I personally find so irrelevant in a videogame that I would say it lacked quality and quantity. But this is also subjective.

All of this makes me concerned for the future GTA installments, because online portion has became a cash cow for them, it seems they don't care about single player fanbase anymore, at some point they will release RDR2 (and GTA VI), and only updates you will receive is going to be for online mode, just like GTA V did. Mark my words.

The only thing that makes me concerned for future GTA installments is the fact that Online is such a cash cow for Rockstar that they may decide to milk it even more for the next game than they are now. This could mean that GTA VI gets a protracted SP mode with nothing more than some perfunctory campaign and slapped together story just to capitalize on the GTA name and entice people to go online.

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ChiroVette
2,763

ChiroVette 2,763

Sorry for the double post, but this site limits the number of quote blocks, so I had to break this up into two posts:

With just about every major GTA release, R* makes changes that makes the new game feel almost-entirely separate from the last game. The same goes for GTA V. However, the reason why GTA V is singled out is likely due to its newly-implemented features. You see, when R* added new features to older GTA titles, they generally did something that no other developers were doing. R* ended up taking far more outside influences than with previous titles.

Rockstar ALWAYS borrowed outside influences and gameplay motifs. Some of them serious additions and some meant as satire. V is no different in this regard.

San Andreas brought in level up features for character abilities, skills, and weapons that were already in use for years in RPG titles. That was derivative, but fun. "Dancing" in San Andreas was lifted from Dance, Dance Revolution. Weapon upgrades by "simply using them" was being done even by action games like Ratchet & Clank for several years, but also many RPG's. Asset properties in both SA and VC were heavily borrowed from RPG games like the SIMS. Hell, GTA III itself took a lot of ideas from the original Driver game, which was actually the first 3D era sandbox game. The reason III is so famous is because it did it so much better and really took all the ideas from SO MANY other games and made it its own.

This is not to suggest that GTA games are all derivative from top to bottom, by the way. BUT one of the things I loved so much back in 2001, and still love about GTA III, is that the game felt like ten games in one. It felt like a shooter, it felt like a driver, it felt like a crime sim, it felt like an RPG in some ways, and on and on. This is, in part, because of the fact that Rockstar has always used GTA as a platform to borrow a f*ck ton of ideas from everywhere all over gaming, combine those ideas with their own motifs, add a fun story and a beautiful world, shake it all up, and create a GTA game.

V is definitely NOT the odd man out in this regard. It follows the same pattern as all GTA games.

For instance, I have yet to see another AAA budget game with GTA IV's level of vehicle crash physics and AI reactions to impacts (Euphoria is more than just simple ragdolls, it's a "simulated" nervous and psychological system).

One of my biggest complaints about GTA IV is that it's all show, no go.

And this is partially why. Rockstar spent so much time with that new engine getting every single little detail right, from creating physics with like ten million ways to ragdoll and die, all sorts of vehicle deformation, NPC actions when being bumped into, dropping things, and falling. IV got all these details right, but in doing so, Rockstar forgot to bring the fun. Its like they were so focused on creating what they thought would be some Mecca of a physics engine, that they either had no time to make a fun game after that or they were too busy ogling at all the cool dents and dings to be bothered to actually create, ya know, a fun game.

I mean, don't get me wrong, if they could do both, fine. But one of the problems I had in IV that I suspect caused it to not be fun, is that the physics were so meticulous that they became restrictive and oppressively tied the hands of players. As I also said above, maybe some of the details (like vehicle deformation) could have been brought into V from IV, and sure, this would have been cool.

But I don't think this was, nor should it have been, a priority when creating a massive videogame world and jam-packing it with a lot of fun. The only reason I ever notice car damage in V is when I read this forum and some fans complain about it. It isn't something I even remotely care about while driving at 200 miles per hour down the street and take a sports car off road lol. I just don't think that this level of detail in crash physics adds enough to a game that it needs to be prioritized. V has incredible attention to detail in many ways. Just not in precisely the same ways as IV Because it is a different game.

V's graphics are more detailed, for instance, as are the overall visuals and colors. And not just on the PC or the PS4/XBone. Even on the PS3 or 360, same console as IV. Again, V has incredible attention to details in many ways, but not all ways. And neither did IV.

Meanwhile, with GTA V, the changes that are seen are pretty "mainstreamed" by most other AAA developers. Of course, I'm talking about the likes of regenerative health, special character abilities, and a low TTK (Time To Kill). I actually feel that a high TTK suits GTA much better.

Personal taste. I actually hated that in IV and now in the Episodes, which I am forcing myself to play through. Also, remember that IV is the odd man out in this regard. It is literally the only game in the series that buffs AI enemies that way. San Andreas, III, VC, LCS, and VCS, as well as V all have much lower TTK, and I think GTA is a better game going this route.

GTA IV still allowed you to dispatch AI very quickly with a single well-placed headshot, but it also allowed players to utilize the slower method if they want (whether to torture or just simply incapacitate, not kill, the AI). However, I do feel that GTA EFLC's combat was inferior to vanilla GTA IV's combat. GTA TLAD has even clunkier movement than the vanilla game. GTA TBOGT is slightly less clunkier in terms of movement, but the added feature of the player's auto-aim breaking away from an incapacitated AI ruined a bit of the pace in what's supposed to be the fastest-paced story of the GTA IV Trilogy (it screws up the target switching almost entirely). GTA V's combat seems to have been more geared towards a sort of "competitive" online component, but even then, its combat still falls way too short to be considered as such. In addition to the low TTK, the weapon balance isn't good, the first-person mode is clunky on consoles, the third-person shoulder aim is way too far off to the right, there's no shoulder-switch button as there is in Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3, auto-aim is still way to prevalent in the multiplayer, and so many other issues.

I think the thing to remember here is that GTA is NOT a shooter, by definition. It is a sandbox crime game, with many, many, many varied gameplay ideas. I expect a shooter (whether FPS or just a regular shooter) to meticulously craft its shooting and cover mechanics. I don't expect this in GTA, nor do I believe it is either appropriate or fun. GTA V takes shooting and adds it into so many other things more seamlessly because the shooting is a part of a greater whole, NOT the final goal. In GTA, at least the GTA that I know and love, combat mechanics are a means to an end, NOT an end to a means.

The thing I LOVE about the gunplay in V is that it is meant to be more fast paced, fluid, and action-packed. One thing I HATED ten years ago in IV, and really hate all over again with the Episodes, is everything happens soooooooo slooooooooooow. It all feels clunky, plodding, and there is no sense of Adrenalin. This is because everything is so calculating and strategizing that the combat feels like a strategy game more than anything else. I agree that the Episodes are even more clunky than regular IV, but still. IV was way too slow moving and plodding, as well, and the cover system was absolutely AWFUL, just as it is in the Episodes.

In V, everything feels like a rush when I am in combat. Its fast, furious, feverish, and heart pounding. As was SA, VC, and III. And this is, in part, due to a lower TTK, where the pace is really stepped up. As for regenerative health, I love the idea, AND I think only partial regeneration without a health pack, soda, or food is a great compromise. MANY games do it, and I think its about time GTA did as well.

That's not to say that all of the "mainstreamed" features are bad, though. The weapon and radio wheels have been long overdue! If those existed in GTA SA and GTA IV (kind of does in the latter, but in a not-so-well-known and more archaic form), that'd have just been an extra button freed up for an additional feature. That's a godsend.

As mentioned earlier, GTA IV's reward system was pretty crap, but so is GTA V's. You literally get over 95% of your campaign money from a single heist while most other missions don't even net you a single penny, and most of the side stuff gives you zilch also. The only good side rewards are the $2,100,000 from the Epsilon missions and the Space Docker from finding all the UFO parts. The "rewards" for finding all the submarine pieces and letter scraps is a total dick-slap to the player. In contrast, GTA SA gave you a significant reward for completing almost-literally every side activity. There is actual worth in getting all gold medals in the schools in GTA SA.

I agree that it is a bit of a let down to get such a huge chunk of money from a mission so close to the end that money is no longer useful to the player. But, for better or wrose, ALL sandbox games are like this. Saints Row, one of my favorite franchises, is guilty of this, too. So was San Andreas and Vice City. I mean, all the 100% completion rewards for SA and VC were cool, but once you have 100% completion, who cares? This is an unfortunate quality of almost all sandbox games. It is what it is. IV, as you said, simply has crappy rewards across the board, and this takes away a lot of the fun.

I think you are glossing over how V, like SA, does incrementally reward the player:

Go to the gun range, and your ammo carrying ability goes through the roof, especially with Franklin. There is enough money to buy all the ammo and weapons you please, and MANY or most of the properties as you progress. lol Just not the Golf Course or the really expensive theaters. I think that the reward system of V, in terms of progression through the story and the side missions, is very satisfying overall.

And yeah, GTA Online is essentially Saints Row: The Turd. Even the splendid Saints Row 2 (still the best in the franchise) hasn't jumped the shark THAT much. GTA SA? GTA SA has the common courtesy to keep the downright absurdity to cheat codes.

I love ALL the SR games, including The Third, SRIV, and Gat Out of Hell. GTA Online is nothing like SR. In fact, from the little I have seen of GTAO it is one of the most spectacular Online experiences in gaming history. My reason for boycotting it isn't because it is too over the top. lol If anything, I see that as AWESOME and a draw, not a deterrent. But I have been boycotting GTAO for 5 years because Rockstar has used it as a platform to gut the SP DLC and post-launch support. Not that my little boycott of one is going to hurt Take2's profits. I just refuse to support that policy of freemium corporate thuggery.

GTA V is great, but I do feel some of the negative influences from the lesser-received online portion may have tainted the core experience. GTA V came out a little over five years after GTA IV, but it was so ambitious that it could have used even more time to flesh out some aspects of gameplay, story, and overall design. Of course, any longer, considering five years is an eternity for video gaming, and the community would have probably burnt down R*'s HQ. So, I will give R* the benefit of doubt that GTA V's reputation (separate from financial success) among the fans was perhaps on a slippery slope since beginning.

Again, in my opinion, GTAO is detrimental not necessarily to GTA. It may, in fact, be the natural outgrowth of the freemium business model, which, unfortunately is inherently corrupt. But the windfall profits that are generated from Online may cause Rockstar to become lazy with future GTA SP games, and my greatest fear for GTA is that the SP will devolve into NOTHING MORE than a transparent scheme to entice people en masse to go online.

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zuckmeslow
2,383

zuckmeslow 2,383

gta v feels like another company tried to make grand theft auto. like halo when 343 took over. sometimes i just think, wow sleeping dogs was a better gta game than gta v.

i had more fun playing wheelman than i ever did playing gta v. gta online would have been awesome.... if it wasnt a gta game.

if they had released a game like the crew meets gta online, that would have been great. gta v should have been 1 protagonist at its current length and 2 dlcs for the additional charaters to properly flesh them out because lets be real, the only reason people like trevor and michael and franklin was because their voice actors were so talented and had such charisma. the characters had no time for development, the antagonists were a joke. seriously stretch was in 3 missions and all the sudden he becomes a major threat at the end. and what about that pointless madrazo storyline in the game.

lets not forget such crowning moments of awesome like

"put it back trevor" or that one mission were you have to do yoga or the mission where you go to therapy with your family.

this game has so many filler missions. the story was rushed and the map layout was terrible.we got barely any interiors, the heists in the game where boring and not even as intense as three leaf clover in gta 4. the game was referencing heat so much that all we got was a very nice cutscene of them ramming an armored truck, there is no suspense in a heist. the paleto heist you have the juggernaut suits that make you feel invincible, the bureau raid was heavily scripted. and the jewel store heist was boring.

i seriously cannot understand how the same company that brought us GTA IV, a game with an amazing story and amazing physics managed to move completely backwards and make a game that looks like some trash game studio tried to copy the gta formula and fail miserably. gta 4 was only held back by the technological limitations of its time, i really thought gta v would have been everything they did right in the past with new things added.

you know what feels like the HD era of GTA

and the car physics, the most important freaking thing in grand theft auto and rockstar managed to go completely backwards

how does that happen?

gta v feels like a gta clone. even the euphoria feels like its been removed

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ChiroVette
2,763

ChiroVette 2,763

As much as I criticise V, it does still feel like a GTA game for most part. Not in the great way as it's predecessors, but it does still feel essentially GTA. Online is another story.....

I completely agree. There isn't a GTA game that doesn't "feel like GTA."

I am playing the Episodes just because I wanted to see what everyone was raving about. They truly remind me of all the things I hate about IV, but as much as I am usually the first one to make jokes about how IV isn't a real GTA, and as much as I really don't like the feel of eother TLaD or BoGT at all, even I can't deny that it is a GTA game. Just not one to my liking. Rockstar may have changed a lot of things, not to my liking in IV, and they may have changed a lot of things not to your liking in V, but to say these games don't feel like GTA, even though most of us have said that about IV or V at one time or another, is a little shortsighted.

I think it may be more appropriate to say that "IV doesn't feel like MY GTA." or for someone who is not a fan of V, like I am, to say "V doesn't feel like my GTA."

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ChiroVette
2,763

ChiroVette 2,763

GTA has ALWAYS had a zillion filler missions. Or are you really going to blast yoga (admittedly boring) and extol the virtues of IV, when that game not only brought BORING ass nonsense to the table like bowling, pool (SA too), and darts, but force you to take ALL your bromance, clingy, ass-wipe "friends" to every one of them to unlock rewards and get 100%, AND forced you to win at least one game for contribution to 100%? Now THAT can be argued to not feel like GTA, but I get that Rockstar was trying something new. I actually almost gave up on BOTH Episodes of LC when I had to WIN an air hockey game on each episode. It was bad enough to have to take these needy, bromance jackoffs to these places, but I wanted to pull my f*cking hair out when I had to spend time out of my day WINNING every single one of these sports.

Yes, V brings them back, and ups the stupidity ante with Yoga, but at least V is less intrusive in that you can pick and choose in many instances what you want to use for your 100%. Although I am forced to concede that adding a full session of Yoga to an actual story mission is a level of stupidity that actually manages to surpass some of IV's stupidity.

Going back to filler missions, do I really need to bring up all the filler missions in III, VC, and SA, not even IV? Marty Chonks: pure filler. Hell, half the Mafia missions and Asuka and Kenji's missions feel like filler. San Andreas was stocked to the brim with fillers, as was Vice City. lol Dancing? Low Rider challenge? Import/Export in all 3D GTA's? I cn go on and on, and I also LOVE those old games, and love the fillers. But you are really reaching with this one.

the story was rushed and the map layout was terrible.

I disagree. The story is one of the best in GTA franchise history, and the map is absolutely gorgeous! I love it, and even though I am a New Yorker, and have lived in NYC my whole life, AND I couldn't wait for IV just to see what ROckstar would do with that map, I am reminded how much I hate the way they rendered the Big Apple in IV.

But, I am also aware that this is opinion. Just like YOUR statement about V's map.

we got barely any interiors,

I understand the criticism of interiors. I don't personally care about interiors, as evidenced by the fact that even with the "Open All Interiors" mod on the PC, I don't think I spent more than 5 minutes exploring them in total. But I get that a lot of GTA fans love them. It also seems SILLY to me that the interiors are actually there. And I believe there are actually more interiors available in V than any other GTA, but Rockstar decided not to make them readily available and left it to the modders. Even though I could not care any less about interiors, this is just lazy on the part of Rockstar. Because they know a lot of people do care. I noticed that there is a function (one I haven't used) in the Episodes, both of them, that allow you to mark the interiors you have discovered. I am sure a lot of IV fans love this.

the heists in the game where boring and not even as intense as three leaf clover in gta 4.

I have to call bullsh*t on this. Don't get me wrong, Three Leaf Clover was literally the BEST PART of GTA IV, the only mission I can honestly say that I truly enjoyed from start to finish. But to suggest that this is better than the heists in V is absurd. Three Leaf Clover plays like a rudimentary heist. Its biggest virtue is it shows what Rockstar was going to do with heists later on. It gave us a glimpse of how awesome the heists would be in V. But no way is that mission even as good as ANY of the heists in V. Not in terms of prep, planning, choices, execution, and the final heist mission.

the game was referencing heat so much that all we got was a very nice cutscene of them ramming an armored truck, there is no suspense in a heist. the paleto heist you have the juggernaut suits that make you feel invincible, the bureau raid was heavily scripted. and the jewel store heist was boring.

Obviously I don't agree with this. Cut scenes have also ALWAYS been used to show cool parts. Even San Andreas had cut scenes that showed CJ doing stuff in things like chase missions that cut away from the action for a moment. As for suspense, the heists in V have plenty of suspense, action, and most of all, pure, unadulterated FUN!

i seriously cannot understand how the same company that brought us GTA IV, a game with an amazing story and amazing physics managed to move completely backwards and make a game that looks like some trash game studio tried to copy the gta formula and fail miserably. gta 4 was only held back by the technological limitations of its time, i really thought gta v would have been everything they did right in the past with new things added.

I think V's physics are WAY better than IV, in that they are more fun and more fitting with old school GTA, like from the 3D era. IV was not held back by technical limitations, it was held back by Rockstar's cringeworth need (at that time at least) to tether the gameplay to a long, drawn out, boring story, and force the player to be limited in a sandbox that felt like it was made out of cast iron.

I am reminded, while soldiering through the Episodes, how oppressive the gameplay is in IV, how plodding and like an elephant man the characters move, how god awful the vehicles handle, and how Rockstar in 2008 was so fetishizing "realism" that they added realistic "weight" to everything.

V improves SO MANY things, and its biggest virtue is that Rockstar, THANK GOD, realized they needed to compromise between IV and the 3D era.

you know what feels like the HD era of GTA

No, just no! I can speak as someone trying to get through the Episodes, that all those pictures you posted DO NOT feel like GTA to me, or as I said above, "like my GTA." lol

and the car physics, the most important freaking thing in grand theft auto and rockstar managed to go completely backwards

THANK GOD they improved the car physics and brought back the FUN of driving I remember from SA, III, VC, LCS, and VCS! GTA is not a driving SIM. You want heavy, limiting driving with cars flying all over the road, then play games like Gran Turismo or FORZA. I get they they try to be overly realistic. Because they are driving SIMS that........................wait for it......................try to simulate real driving. Which is fine for that genre.

If anything, GTA IV was the odd man out in this regard. GTA NEVER had realistic or "heavy car weight" kind of driving physics before IV, and thankfully not after IV.

gta v feels like a gta clone. even the euphoria feels like its been removed

Sorry, again, no.

If anything, IV feels more like a GTA clone to me, at least relative to other GTA games, anyway. Don't believe me?

If you have a PS2 or a PS3 (which is BC) go get yourself a copy of The Getaway! If you love GTA IV, you will enjoy that game a lot. GTA IV actually feels in many ways, like "A Getaway Clone." That game came out in 2002 and was doing realism crap 6 years before Rockstar even thought of it.

If someone told me that Team Soho was hired, en masse, as the dev team for GTA IV, I would believe it without question. Not just the driving, either. Slow, plodding, "realistically heavy" character movement of the protagonists in that game are VERY GTA IV'ish. Seriously, if you love GTA IV that much, go and get a copy of the FIRST Getaway game by team SOHO. I can't speak for the sequel of it, because I never played it.

Edited May 7 by ChiroVette

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TheOneLibertonian
4,201

TheOneLibertonian 4,201

Honestly speaking, GTA V does have it's own defining "GTA" characteristics and it did sort of reprised and stayed true to many of the series' unique elements that it proudly had since GTA III. GTA V had Rockstar's trademark humor, a massive, detailed open world, a narrative driven story, and obviously the non-linear action sandbox gameplay. However, I can't help but feel that despite that every single component of what makes GTA inherently GTA remain prominent within GTA V, feel most of it is either compromised or half-assed.

Sure it is subjective that I prefer GTA to be more story driven, grounded, mature, and down to earth. Which is why IV is my favourite GTA amongst all others, but GTA V's overall core gameplay felt so sterile and mainstream to try and appeal to a larger audience. This is when objectively speaking, V's problems start to show some cracks. Many of the gameplay elements within the SP mode did not feel entirely suited to adhere to player's benefits. I get the impression that the SP is just one gigantic tease to GTA Online and it's many different modes. The euphoria physics engine is drastically downgraded from GTA IV and RDR, the driving mechanics while responsive; felt too simplified, the shooting mechanics are uninspired, the AI being limited & sensitive, and lastly while the world is intoxicatingly vast and beautiful; most of it felt filler and half-hearted with the lack of interiors, interactivity, and detail. All these gameplay components generally feel more suited to a MMO environment to appease to a wider range of players.

GTA V is a great title on it's own but when comparing to Rockstar's previous efforts, it simply didn't stand out that much and most of it is due to blame for the compromises to make the game a more Online friendly experience. I'll make it clear that it is essentially very much GTA, but in terms of execution and artistic merit, it wasn't as good as previous titles since III.

Edited May 7 by TheOneLibertonian

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Lock n' Stock
2,322

Lock n' Stock 2,322

To be honest, I see V as a great game with alot of wasted potential. The foundation and room for improvement is there, but Rockstar never used it to the fullest. Instead they blatantly lied about upcoming single-player DLC only to backtrack on that and put all their focus into Online instead, so that gets all the fancy new weapons, vehicles and missions while single-player is left to rot in the dust.

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ChiroVette
2,763

ChiroVette 2,763

Sure it is subjective that I prefer GTA to be more story driven, grounded, mature, and down to earth. Which is why IV is my favourite GTA amongst all others

See I like posts like yours from guys like you, Algonquin, Misunderstood, and other more open minded fans who disagree with me about V and IV. Because, while you and I would probably disagree about a lot of things when it comes to the relative merits of V and IV, you are acknowledging that this is all your opinion. Which is totally cool.

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scorpioxdragon
13

scorpioxdragon 13

I played both SA and IV. To be honest, V is the only one that had me interested in the actual story. Maybe I need to go back and play IV since it's been a while, but I very clearly recall not caring about the story. In that respect, I don't mind that V may be "different".

I AM however disappointed that we did not and will not get any DLC for Story Mode. I gladly would've paid for it.

As a result I'm contemplating skipping the next title on console and just getting it for PC, so I can use mods. NEVER have I been interested in picking up a PC version of anything so I could get more out of the game, just because the developer doesn't care to add more to it themselves. Until now.

I also don't care for the online aspect at all. There are way too many online free for all's, and nothing in GTA online specifically, that would justify me spending any time in, over a more immersive MMORPG or a more satisfying multi-player shooter. I do respect the opinion of people that enjoy GTA online, but it just isn't for me. And so I also respect the opinion of people that prefer the older GTA titles. But V really got me. It's really sad it will not see further development.

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ChiroVette
2,763

ChiroVette 2,763

I played both SA and IV. To be honest, V is the only one that had me interested in the actual story. Maybe I need to go back and play IV since it's been a while, but I very clearly recall not caring about the story. In that respect, I don't mind that V may be "different".

I AM however disappointed that we did not and will not get any DLC for Story Mode. I gladly would've paid for it.

As a result I'm contemplating skipping the next title on console and just getting it for PC, so I can use mods. NEVER have I been interested in picking up a PC version of anything so I could get more out of the game, just because the developer doesn't care to add more to it themselves. Until now.

I also don't care for the online aspect at all. There are way too many online free for all's, and nothing in GTA online specifically, that would justify me spending any time in, over a more immersive MMORPG or a more satisfying multi-player shooter. I do respect the opinion of people that enjoy GTA online, but it just isn't for me. And so I also respect the opinion of people that prefer the older GTA titles. But V really got me. It's really sad it will not see further development.

I am with you on the story of IV.

And while we're on the subject, I completed TLaD 100% and and slowly going through TBoGT, and I have to be honest. While the gameplay. may, visuals, and physics are about what I expected, and I suppose they are okay enough, I don't see why every IV fan is just fetishizing the story. Firstly, I thought that IV's story was a cheap Wiseguy movie knockoff with an immigrant thrown in, which is fine. Its a freaking videogame, not Shakespeare, or even Coppola or Scorsese for Christsakes. I can only speak to a part of Gay Tony since most of my work in that game was to do the 50 Drug War missions, the damned seagulls, and all the side missions, while only a few career missions. But I can honestly say that TLaD felt like a really bad, hack version of Sons of Anarchy, which had its first season around the time of the Episodes. The dialog in the Episodes so far is just meh.

I do like the radio stations, but in terms of the story, the Episodes really are no better than IV, and I have to say that Johnny K is such a no personalty, deadpan protagonist. I know they were trying to portray him as the broody, strong and silent type, and I don't know if this is the fault of the actor who played him or the writing, but he comes off like a weak side character. At least Luis seems to have some sort of a personality.

Anyway, my point is that the IV fans in this forum love to talk about how amazing they think the story of IV and its Episodes are, and they simultaneously blast V's story, but I just don't get it. Like you, I think V has a very interesting and robust story. And the characters don't come off to me like some B-movie cliches the way all the IV characters do.

I also agree with your trepidation going forward due to online and the categorical abandonment of SP support once the milking of the Shark Cards cash cow created windfall profits for Take2.

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SanLiberty
81

SanLiberty 81

But did GTA V change so much that it lost the original GTA feel to it?

.

.

.

.

Was the GTA franchise ruined by GTA V and its "new features"? Tbh I hope the next GTA won't have those features and that it will feature the old GTA UI (and GTA 4's AI and physics).

If anything, GTA V redeemed the franchise after the 2008 debacle. GTA V is more reminiscent of the wild, unbridled fun of San Andreas. Thankfully, Rockstar learned a lot from IV's terrible mistakes. I do think that there are some flaws in V. I do agree that you die to quickly in V. But I had the same problem with IV back ten years ago. But IV was worse, because while you may not have died quite as easily as you do in V, your enemies were MUCH MUCH harder to kill. I am playing through the Episodes (or trying to summon the interest to continue) and one of the first things I noticed in TLaD, reminded me of IV. Johnny definitely is more resilient to gunfire than the V trio, BUT the enemies are so much harder to kill that in essence, you really do die easier in IV than V during a gunfight.

Not a complaint, just saying that because of the buffed enemies, compared to V, shootouts make it easier to die in IV and the Episodes. If I actually liked the game(s) this might be a good thing.

But V improves on SO MANY things. I will grant that there are still too many similarities that V shares with IV, and if I had my way, V would be even more reminiscent of San Andreas than it is. But you can't have everything!

I HIGHLY disagree.

I think GTA V is like a GTA game, but it's more realistic and easy.

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zuckmeslow
2,383

zuckmeslow 2,383

GTA has ALWAYS had a zillion filler missions. Or are you really going to blast yoga (admittedly boring) and extol the virtues of IV, when that game not only brought BORING ass nonsense to the table like bowling, pool (SA too), and darts, but force you to take ALL your bromance, clingy, ass-wipe "friends" to every one of them to unlock rewards and get 100%, AND forced you to win at least one game for contribution to 100%? Now THAT can be argued to not feel like GTA, but I get that Rockstar was trying something new. I actually almost gave up on BOTH Episodes of LC when I had to WIN an air hockey game on each episode. It was bad enough to have to take these needy, bromance jackoffs to these places, but I wanted to pull my f*cking hair out when I had to spend time out of my day WINNING every single one of these sports.

Yes, V brings them back, and ups the stupidity ante with Yoga, but at least V is less intrusive in that you can pick and choose in many instances what you want to use for your 100%. Although I am forced to concede that adding a full session of Yoga to an actual story mission is a level of stupidity that actually manages to surpass some of IV's stupidity.

Going back to filler missions, do I really need to bring up all the filler missions in III, VC, and SA, not even IV? Marty Chonks: pure filler. Hell, half the Mafia missions and Asuka and Kenji's missions feel like filler. San Andreas was stocked to the brim with fillers, as was Vice City. lol Dancing? Low Rider challenge? Import/Export in all 3D GTA's? I cn go on and on, and I also LOVE those old games, and love the fillers. But you are really reaching with this one.

yes gta has always had filler missions, but let me stop you there

GTA san andreas has 100 missions

GTA 4 has 91 missions

GTA V has 69 missions

the story was rushed and the map layout was terrible.

I disagree. The story is one of the best in GTA franchise history, and the map is absolutely gorgeous! I love it, and even though I am a New Yorker, and have lived in NYC my whole life, AND I couldn't wait for IV just to see what ROckstar would do with that map, I am reminded how much I hate the way they rendered the Big Apple in IV.

But, I am also aware that this is opinion. Just like YOUR statement about V's map.

i was born, raised and still live in New York. everytime i play gta 4 i am amazed at how detailed liberty city is, no its not an exact copy of any borough but it gets the atmosphere right. in my opinion no other game has gotten new york city as best as gta 4 has

what other game can you name that has a better representation of new york.

i seriously cannot understand how the same company that brought us GTA IV, a game with an amazing story and amazing physics managed to move completely backwards and make a game that looks like some trash game studio tried to copy the gta formula and fail miserably. gta 4 was only held back by the technological limitations of its time, i really thought gta v would have been everything they did right in the past with new things added.

I think V's physics are WAY better than IV, in that they are more fun and more fitting with old school GTA, like from the 3D era. IV was not held back by technical limitations, it was held back by Rockstar's cringeworth need (at that time at least) to tether the gameplay to a long, drawn out, boring story, and force the player to be limited in a sandbox that felt like it was made out of cast iron.

I am reminded, while soldiering through the Episodes, how oppressive the gameplay is in IV, how plodding and like an elephant man the characters move, how god awful the vehicles handle, and how Rockstar in 2008 was so fetishizing "realism" that they added realistic "weight" to everything.

V improves SO MANY things, and its biggest virtue is that Rockstar, THANK GOD, realized they needed to compromise between IV and the 3D era.

and the car physics, the most important freaking thing in grand theft auto and rockstar managed to go completely backwards

THANK GOD they improved the car physics and brought back the FUN of driving I remember from SA, III, VC, LCS, and VCS! GTA is not a driving SIM. You want heavy, limiting driving with cars flying all over the road, then play games like Gran Turismo or FORZA. I get they they try to be overly realistic. Because they are driving SIMS that........................wait for it......................try to simulate real driving. Which is fine for that genre.

If anything, GTA IV was the odd man out in this regard. GTA NEVER had realistic or "heavy car weight" kind of driving physics before IV, and thankfully not after IV.

I get it if you prefer the physics in V over IV but i cannot stand how it feels like im driving toy rc cars. i like the feeling of weight, its not a sim, its the HD era of gta and everything was improved with gta 4. gran turismo and forza are nothing like the driving in gta 4.

there is no difference between the way cars handle in gta v and the way they handle in other open world games like sleeping dogs, saints row, watch dogs and saying that gta never had realistic or heavy car weight before IV is like saying gta never had 3 protagonists before V so its the odd man out. as technology improves so do the games in a series. i dont want gta 4 to play the same as previous gta games, the grand theft auto series is not like call of duty, every game should be an improvement from the last and gta v went backwards in places that gta 4 went forwards.

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ChiroVette
2,763

ChiroVette 2,763

Zuckmeslow, you are definitely making some good points, even in things I don't agree with you on. Rather than go through a big quote tree, I will try and respond to your points with generic quote boxes:

yes gta has always had filler missions, but let me stop you there

GTA san andreas has 100 missions

GTA 4 has 91 missions

GTA V has 69 missions

My argument here is one IV fans use all the time, which is that the mission structure of V is a huge step up in quality. So I will gladly take the much greater mission depth of V over a lot of the other games, particularly IV, which even though it has 91 missions, they really feel repetitive to me. And in going through the Episodes now, this is reinforcing itself as well. We have all heard complaints like with IV its all about Pick up person A, drive to location b, shoot a bunch of guys, drive person A to location C....and blah, blah, blah. V's missions, overall, are much more varied, breathtakingly fun, and have much greater gameplay depth. Now, before you say it, I would concede the point that V really doesn't have 69 missions. Its probably more like 60, when you subtract some of the non-mission-missions like "Go buy Boiler suits" or masks. lol I think Rockstar just likes the number 69....and let's face it, who doesn't, right?

Also, I would be willing to cater to IV fans and remove the Did Somebody Say Yoga mission from the 69, since other than story, which is cool, it really is a dumbly put together mission. Hey, I was the guy who pissed and moaned about all the clingy, needy, ridiculous forced-bromance friend/bar-sport crap in IV being necessary for rewards and 100%, so fair is fair. I have to call V on the Yoga mission.

Another thing, though, is that while V may have only 69 missions 60ish missions, that is only regular career missions. Look, I would make the case that MANY of the side missions have robust enough storylines tethered to them that they could or at least should be seen as part of the storyline. Yes, they are side stories, BUT each of the three protagonists have very rich stories and back stories that all add to the overall storyline of V without technically being part of the 60ish storyline missions. This makes the overall story of V quite meaty and robust. Not to mention the really surprisingly well done story additions to the game of the Strangers & Freaks.

i was born, raised and still live in New York. everytime i play gta 4 i am amazed at how detailed liberty city is, no its not an exact copy of any borough but it gets the atmosphere right. in my opinion no other game has gotten new york city as best as gta 4 has

what other game can you name that has a better representation of new york.

I have to partially concede this point, but only partially. As a New Yorker as well, living in the Big Apple my whole life, there are certain things about IV/Episodes map that even though I hate IV I have to admit are very good. In terms of detail and feel of neighborhoods, I will agree with you. No game has done the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, Lincoln Tunnel, Triborough Bridge, Statue of Liberty, and some other landmarks as well as IV did. Even Prospect Park and Flushing Meadow Park are very nice in the game. Now forget graphics, because this is a ten year old game, and it wouldn't be fair to cite V's huge graphic superiority. But let me say that my largest complaint about IV's map is that it really doesn't get the job done in terms of size. Now, I can forgive some of this, but not all.

As a New Yorker it really bothers me that the Empire State Building, Met Life Building (Grand Central), Triborough Bridge, City Hall, the Theater District, Central Park, and the the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges are so close together that they are all literally walking distance from one another. This really breaks the immersion for me, especially as a New Yorker. But I can overlook this, well, to a point. What I cannot and will not overlook is the horrible brown/grey color filter over literally everything. That ruins the entire map for me.

As an example, look at footage of the coming Spider-Man PS4 title that will be released this September. From everything I am seeing, that game will be the BEST rendering of NY City when it launches. INSOMNIAC is promising the map will be absolutely huge, which, let's be honest, IV's map is not. I find the rendering of NY City in IV to be much too small, but as I said, I could be induced to overlook that. Now, again, forget graphics. Because Spider-Man PS4 is being developed in 4K for the PS4, so let's not use graphics as our yardstick. It would be unfair to GTA IV. But if you look at videos and images of that game from the pre release information, the city looks bright, colorful, and vibrant. Again, just color and hue, not graphics.

I am having a lot of trouble getting immersed in IV's Episodes because of the map, and that is a real shame. Because in terms of detail and "feel," Rockstar does nail a lot of the NY vibe. One thing that I found really impressive, being from Brooklyn, is that there is a section of two and three family houses near the Brooklyn Bridge in the game, and they look like they were exact replicas of some of the homes in my neighborhood, near Marine Park, as well as some of the Park Slope and Cobble Hill homes.

Certain things I am finding in the Episodes on the map really grab me in terms of how authentic they feel. But I just cannot get past the horrible, brown/grey filter over everything. NY City, as you already know, is a lot more colorfully vibrant than that. So while I will absolutely concede some of your points about the map, there are things that do make me roll my eyes.

I get it if you prefer the physics in V over IV but i cannot stand how it feels like im driving toy rc cars. i like the feeling of weight, its not a sim, its the HD era of gta and everything was improved with gta 4. gran turismo and forza are nothing like the driving in gta 4.

Again, partially true. I get that the driving in IV is not totally realistic like those games. BUT it is meant to be. At least insofar as Rockstar was able to make the driving in a sandbox game, with a lot more than just driving. But again, playing with the driving in the Episodes, I can totally handle the cars. I won all the bike races in TLaD, I can easily outdrive the AI opponents in all situations, but it just isn't any fun. Because the cars may not drive realistically, as you are pointing out, BUT they drive like they weigh too much. Even the 3D era games handled the driving better, to be honest. Because Rockstar wasn't as concerned with realism and "weight."

By the way? The same weight complaint I have about the character movements on foot. Niko, Luis, and Johnny feel slow, plodding, and pompously heavy. The previous GTA games didn't saddle the player with that kind of "weight" and thankfully V doesn't either.

there is no difference between the way cars handle in gta v and the way they handle in other open world games like sleeping dogs, saints row, watch dogs and saying that gta never had realistic or heavy car weight before IV is like saying gta never had 3 protagonists before V so its the odd man out. as technology improves so do the games in a series. i dont want gta 4 to play the same as previous gta games, the grand theft auto series is not like call of duty, every game should be an improvement from the last and gta v went backwards in places that gta 4 went forwards.

Well, you also need to bear in mind that not once did I ever say that the driving in V is empirically better than IV or the Episodes. I think that V improves both driving and character movement on foot dramatically. BUT I also can absolutely understand why people such as yourself and other IV fans disagree. You know what the difference is, though? You aren't flying into threads where people like me complain about IV's driving when compared to V and attack us, saying, "Well you just suck at driving then!!" So I can respect your preferences in the matter, since you aren't using said preferences to attack mine.

Look, V's driving is NOT objectively better than IV's, nor is it objectively worse. Its just different and meant to appeal to different tastes. Some people want driving to be more of an adrenaline rush, cornering a little ridiculously, and love the idea of taking a half million dollar sports car off road and use it to climb mountains. Realistic? No. Believable? No. Fun? Yes. To me at least. But I can see that the same way the color of the map of IV makes me roll my eyes, and the way IV cars slide all over the place if your not careful really bores me, that cars handling the way I prefer them to handle would bother a fan who really likes the driving of IV.

So, again, I am not saying my enjoyment of V's driving and my disdain for IV's is me right in the face of you being wrong. Also, I would argue that the car handling in V is improved, but I also see how you would disagree.

As for backward and forward, my biggest complaint about GTA IV was that it really felt like 5 steps back from San Andreas. Rockstar improved the graphics and they added a huge sense of realism to the game. So to players like me, all that realism really is a step backward. As I said in a previous post, to me, IV feels like a sequel to The Getaway more than to GTA. Team Soho had the same kind of very restrictive realism in their first Getaway game. So in all the ways that mattered to me, it was IV that was going backward, away from fun and away from a feeling of unbridled freedom. When I played IV (and now, getting through the Episodes) I don't feel a sense of fun or freedom. I feel restricted, constrained, and most of all, vastly slowed down. The game just feels very plodding and clumsy to me. Which is, I suppose, what Rockstar was trying to accomplish with Euphria.

Edited May 7 by ChiroVette

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zuckmeslow
2,383

zuckmeslow 2,383

Zuckmeslow, you are definitely making some good points, even in things I don't agree with you on. Rather than go through a big quote tree, I will try and respond to your points with generic quote boxes:

yes gta has always had filler missions, but let me stop you there

GTA san andreas has 100 missions

GTA 4 has 91 missions

GTA V has 69 missions

My argument here is one IV fans use all the time, which is that the mission structure of V is a huge step up in quality. So I will gladly take the much greater mission depth of V over a lot of the other games, particularly IV, which even though it has 91 missions, they really feel repetitive to me. And in going through the Episodes now, this is reinforcing itself as well. We have all heard complaints like with IV its all about Pick up person A, drive to location b, shoot a bunch of guys, drive person A to location C....and blah, blah, blah. V's missions, overall, are much more varied, breathtakingly fun, and have much greater gameplay depth. Now, before you say it, I would concede the point that V really doesn't have 69 missions. Its probably more like 60, when you subtract some of the non-mission-missions like "Go buy Boiler suits" or masks. lol I think Rockstar just likes the number 69....and let's face it, who doesn't, right?

Also, I would be willing to cater to IV fans and remove the Did Somebody Say Yoga mission from the 69, since other than story, which is cool, it really is a dumbly put together mission. Hey, I was the guy who pissed and moaned about all the clingy, needy, ridiculous forced-bromance friend/bar-sport crap in IV being necessary for rewards and 100%, so fair is fair. I have to call V on the Yoga mission.

Another thing, though, is that while V may have only 69 missions 60ish missions, that is only regular career missions. Look, I would make the case that MANY of the side missions have robust enough storylines tethered to them that they could or at least should be seen as part of the storyline. Yes, they are side stories, BUT each of the three protagonists have very rich stories and back stories that all add to the overall storyline of V without technically being part of the 60ish storyline missions. This makes the overall story of V quite meaty and robust. Not to mention the really surprisingly well done story additions to the game of the Strangers & Freaks.

i was born, raised and still live in New York. everytime i play gta 4 i am amazed at how detailed liberty city is, no its not an exact copy of any borough but it gets the atmosphere right. in my opinion no other game has gotten new york city as best as gta 4 has

what other game can you name that has a better representation of new york.

I have to partially concede this point, but only partially. As a New Yorker as well, living in the Big Apple my whole life, there are certain things about IV/Episodes map that even though I hate IV I have to admit are very good. In terms of detail and feel of neighborhoods, I will agree with you. No game has done the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, Lincoln Tunnel, Triborough Bridge, Statue of Liberty, and some other landmarks as well as IV did. Even Prospect Park and Flushing Meadow Park are very nice in the game. Now forget graphics, because this is a ten year old game, and it wouldn't be fair to cite V's huge graphic superiority. But let me say that my largest complaint about IV's map is that it really doesn't get the job done in terms of size. Now, I can forgive some of this, but not all.

As a New Yorker it really bothers me that the Empire State Building, Met Life Building (Grand Central), Triborough Bridge, City Hall, the Theater District, Central Park, and the the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges are so close together that they are all literally walking distance from one another. This really breaks the immersion for me, especially as a New Yorker. But I can overlook this, well, to a point. What I cannot and will not overlook is the horrible brown/grey color filter over literally everything. That ruins the entire map for me.

As an example, look at footage of the coming Spider-Man PS4 title that will be released this September. From everything I am seeing, that game will be the BEST rendering of NY City when it launches. INSOMNIAC is promising the map will be absolutely huge, which, let's be honest, IV's map is not. I find the rendering of NY City in IV to be much too small, but as I said, I could be induced to overlook that. Now, again, forget graphics. Because Spider-Man PS4 is being developed in 4K for the PS4, so let's not use graphics as our yardstick. It would be unfair to GTA IV. But if you look at videos and images of that game from the pre release information, the city looks bright, colorful, and vibrant. Again, just color and hue, not graphics.

I am having a lot of trouble getting immersed in IV's Episodes because of the map, and that is a real shame. Because in terms of detail and "feel," Rockstar does nail a lot of the NY vibe. One thing that I found really impressive, being from Brooklyn, is that there is a section of two and three family houses near the Brooklyn Bridge in the game, and they look like they were exact replicas of some of the homes in my neighborhood, near Marine Park, as well as some of the Park Slope and Cobble Hill homes.

Certain things I am finding in the Episodes on the map really grab me in terms of how authentic they feel. But I just cannot get past the horrible, brown/grey filter over everything. NY City, as you already know, is a lot more colorfully vibrant than that. So while I will absolutely concede some of your points about the map, there are things that do make me roll my eyes.

I get it if you prefer the physics in V over IV but i cannot stand how it feels like im driving toy rc cars. i like the feeling of weight, its not a sim, its the HD era of gta and everything was improved with gta 4. gran turismo and forza are nothing like the driving in gta 4.

Again, partially true. I get that the driving in IV is not totally realistic like those games. BUT it is meant to be. At least insofar as Rockstar was able to make the driving in a sandbox game, with a lot more than just driving. But again, playing with the driving in the Episodes, I can totally handle the cars. I won all the bike races in TLaD, I can easily outdrive the AI opponents in all situations, but it just isn't any fun. Because the cars may not drive realistically, as you are pointing out, BUT they drive like they weigh too much. Even the 3D era games handled the driving better, to be honest. Because Rockstar wasn't as concerned with realism and "weight."

By the way? The same weight complaint I have about the character movements on foot. Niko, Luis, and Johnny feel slow, plodding, and pompously heavy. The previous GTA games didn't saddle the player with that kind of "weight" and thankfully V doesn't either.

there is no difference between the way cars handle in gta v and the way they handle in other open world games like sleeping dogs, saints row, watch dogs and saying that gta never had realistic or heavy car weight before IV is like saying gta never had 3 protagonists before V so its the odd man out. as technology improves so do the games in a series. i dont want gta 4 to play the same as previous gta games, the grand theft auto series is not like call of duty, every game should be an improvement from the last and gta v went backwards in places that gta 4 went forwards.

Well, you also need to bear in mind that not once did I ever say that the driving in V is empirically better than IV or the Episodes. I think that V improves both driving and character movement on foot dramatically. BUT I also can absolutely understand why people such as yourself and other IV fans disagree. You know what the difference is, though? You aren't flying into threads where people like me complain about IV's driving when compared to V and attack us, saying, "Well you just suck at driving then!!" So I can respect your preferences in the matter, since you aren't using said preferences to attack mine.

Look, V's driving is NOT objectively better than IV's, nor is it objectively worse. Its just different and meant to appeal to different tastes. Some people want driving to be more of an adrenaline rush, cornering a little ridiculously, and love the idea of taking a half million dollar sports car off road and use it to climb mountains. Realistic? No. Believable? No. Fun? Yes. To me at least. But I can see that the same way the color of the map of IV makes me roll my eyes, and the way IV cars slide all over the place if your not careful really bores me, that cars handling the way I prefer them to handle would bother a fan who really likes the driving of IV.

So, again, I am not saying my enjoyment of V's driving and my disdain for IV's is me right in the face of you being wrong. Also, I would argue that the car handling in V is improved, but I also see how you would disagree.

As for backward and forward, my biggest complaint about GTA IV was that it really felt like 5 steps back from San Andreas. Rockstar improved the graphics and they added a huge sense of realism to the game. So to players like me, all that realism really is a step backward. As I said in a previous post, to me, IV feels like a sequel to The Getaway more than to GTA. Team Soho had the same kind of very restrictive realism in their first Getaway game. So in all the ways that mattered to me, it was IV that was going backward, away from fun and away from a feeling of unbridled freedom. When I played IV (and now, getting through the Episodes) I don't feel a sense of fun or freedom. I feel restricted, constrained, and most of all, vastly slowed down. The game just feels very plodding and clumsy to me. Which is, I suppose, what Rockstar was trying to accomplish with Euphria.

im not good with the whole quote thing but about certain points

about the missions, i get exactly what you are saying about gta 4 being alot of missions that are drive people here or there and what not. I am not a fan of some missions in gta 4, there are alot that i love but i agree some of the missions are a bit boring and/or tedious but, i enjoy playing 4 because i find the pacing to be great and the characters to be compelling and it makes me want to continue playing. the thing that i love most about gta 4 however is the free roam gameplay. i love just driving around or walking around and messing with the physics in the game.

about the map and color of the game, yes i agree many things in the game are too close together or missing. i still howver think the map is good enough because i never get bored of just driving around like i do with gta v's los santos or surrounding areas. now the issue about the color of the game, yes it is a bit on the cold side but that is why i always have had my color settings different than the default. i dont remember what i have mine set to but it also depends on your tv, i have my saturation and brightness in the games menu set to a certain level that brings out the red and orange colors ( and other colors in general) to combat the blue and brown tones in the game. its not an unrealistic picture and looks more like new york in the summertime. the sunsets are more vibrant and the taxicabs are more yellow with the settings i use and this is on the xbox 360 and xbox one so i dont have access to mods. just the in game settings.

about the car handling. I guess i just prefer the heavier feel to the cars. the car handling in gta v just feels too generic for me. it feels like im playing any other open world game. gta 4 felt different and i love it for that, the way the cars flipped in that game and the body damage is still amazing to this day. i feel like it makes police chases much more fun and when you have cars flipping and crashing like they do in movies as opposed to gta v which i feel is too video gamey. i hate in gta v how easy it is to fly out of your car and it feels like they made it harder for cars to flip over.

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Ash_735
13,441

Ash_735 13,441

GTAV does feel like a GTA, no doubting that, just to me in places it's a bad GTA, but still GTA. The ONLY place I could see the argument for it NOT feeling GTA like are in areas where they perhaps adopted too much modern gaming designs and then didn't want to give options to turn things off (not going to bring up another game in the series, but there's a choice in that at least) such as the kill markers, screen flashing to let you know you've killed someone, etc, it made sense in Max Payne 3 as it's fast paced and meant to be a shooter, where as in GTA it felt un-needed and a bit "easy" at times seeing as there was no need to be cautious in places to make sure everyone was dead after a shoot out before advancing. I'd say player abilities felt out of place too, something they already back tracked on in GTA Online. IF YOU LIKED IT THAT'S FINE, this is just my opinion on the subject matter and is not a representative of everyones views nor am I forcing this opinion unto others.

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ChiroVette
2,763

ChiroVette 2,763

about the missions, i get exactly what you are saying about gta 4 being alot of missions that are drive people here or there and what not. I am not a fan of some missions in gta 4, there are alot that i love but i agree some of the missions are a bit boring and/or tedious but, i enjoy playing 4 because i find the pacing to be great and the characters to be compelling and it makes me want to continue playing. the thing that i love most about gta 4 however is the free roam gameplay. i love just driving around or walking around and messing with the physics in the game.

Also, and this is one of the things I have been saying in V's favor when arguing with critics, a game is MORE than just its missions, its story, its writing, its dialog, its physics, and its variety. The problem with the IV vs V debate, when things get heated in this forum, isn't that there really is a right side and a wrong side. I can see how a player's priorities can dictate how they would feel about the respective games, as you and I may differ on many things yet agree on others.

So, in your case, since you really like IV's physics, driving and character movement and ragdoll, etc., then you are going to enjoy missions that I find too repetitive. Because, since I don't personally like the story and the physics of IV, my ability to accept certain weaknesses in the gameplay even if we both agree they exist is much more limited than yours. The same can be said for V. Since I love the story and the physics, I am going to be a lot more tolerant of things like yoga than you will, and things like the filler missions, than you will. You, on the other hand, will not just tolerate, but might actually enjoy the friend stuff in IV.

Also, along these lines, I feel incredibly connected to V in many ways, and I feel just as disconnected from IV. You, on the other hand, feel very connected to IV, but very disconnected from V, both of us for the reasons I just mentioned. I think that when you really love things like the physics, the driving, the character and story, and other attributes, and you feel deeply connected to a game, everything else falls into place.

Maybe because I hate the physics of IV and find the story slow and boring, and don't feel connected emotionally to the characters, that predisposes me to just think the story sucks. And since you feel like the story of V is not serious or edgy enough, it colors your perception of it the way my perceptions of IV color that game. Because you really have to ask yourself, if Rockstar has the best devs in gaming AND Dan Houser has the best storywriters in gaming, then how bad can either game truly be? Now I can go on posturing as if IV is the odd man out because I detest the game and the story, and you can likewise do the same, and we can just argue back and forth like has happened in this forum many times.

Or we can accept the fact that IV and V, insofar as they are both GTA games, are so diametrically opposed in many ways that our opinions really are subjective and mandated, not by objective fact, but taste. I have argued with many people here about the so-called "wasted space" of V's map, because I love the way the map utilizes space and all the things I love to do on the map, like collectibles S&F, side missions, etc.. But what if a player hates all those things I love in the game, or just is a little underwhelmed? Then wouldn't they be predisposed to think the map was poor or wasted space?

about the map and color of the game, yes i agree many things in the game are too close together or missing. i still howver think the map is good enough because i never get bored of just driving around like i do with gta v's los santos or surrounding areas. now the issue about the color of the game, yes it is a bit on the cold side but that is why i always have had my color settings different than the default.

But here again, I bet a lot of your enjoyment of the map of IV and your not liking V's as much also has to do with more than just the map, and in fact, how you see the game as a whole. Maybe if you liked the physics better in V, and I liked the physics better in IV, I would like the map more than I do and you would like V's map more than you do. Isn't "immersion" more than just one or two scattered features? Seems to me that the more things that stack up in a game you love, the more connected you will feel to the entirety of the game, even things you may or may not like 100%, but you get so lost in the game, your eyes don't see the things you might otherwise regard as flaws.

about the car handling. I guess i just prefer the heavier feel to the cars. the car handling in gta v just feels too generic for me. it feels like im playing any other open world game. gta 4 felt different and i love it for that, the way the cars flipped in that game and the body damage is still amazing to this day. i feel like it makes police chases much more fun and when you have cars flipping and crashing like they do in movies as opposed to gta v which i feel is too video gamey. i hate in gta v how easy it is to fly out of your car and it feels like they made it harder for cars to flip over.

IV's damage is definitely a lot better than V's. I noticed this almost right away when playing the Episodes, but it was something I had forgotten since I haven't played IV in ten years. The other car stuff, as we already discussed, is purely a matter of taste.

Edited May 8 by ChiroVette

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TheOneLibertonian
4,201

TheOneLibertonian 4,201

I have to partially concede this point, but only partially. As a New Yorker as well, living in the Big Apple my whole life, there are certain things about IV/Episodes map that even though I hate IV I have to admit are very good. In terms of detail and feel of neighborhoods, I will agree with you. No game has done the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, Lincoln Tunnel, Triborough Bridge, Statue of Liberty, and some other landmarks as well as IV did. Even Prospect Park and Flushing Meadow Park are very nice in the game. Now forget graphics, because this is a ten year old game, and it wouldn't be fair to cite V's huge graphic superiority. But let me say that my largest complaint about IV's map is that it really doesn't get the job done in terms of size. Now, I can forgive some of this, but not all.

As a New Yorker it really bothers me that the Empire State Building, Met Life Building (Grand Central), Triborough Bridge, City Hall, the Theater District, Central Park, and the the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges are so close together that they are all literally walking distance from one another. This really breaks the immersion for me, especially as a New Yorker. But I can overlook this, well, to a point. What I cannot and will not overlook is the horrible brown/grey color filter over literally everything. That ruins the entire map for me.

As an example, look at footage of the coming Spider-Man PS4 title that will be released this September. From everything I am seeing, that game will be the BEST rendering of NY City when it launches. INSOMNIAC is promising the map will be absolutely huge, which, let's be honest, IV's map is not. I find the rendering of NY City in IV to be much too small, but as I said, I could be induced to overlook that. Now, again, forget graphics. Because Spider-Man PS4 is being developed in 4K for the PS4, so let's not use graphics as our yardstick. It would be unfair to GTA IV. But if you look at videos and images of that game from the pre release information, the city looks bright, colorful, and vibrant. Again, just color and hue, not graphics.

I am having a lot of trouble getting immersed in IV's Episodes because of the map, and that is a real shame. Because in terms of detail and "feel," Rockstar does nail a lot of the NY vibe. One thing that I found really impressive, being from Brooklyn, is that there is a section of two and three family houses near the Brooklyn Bridge in the game, and they look like they were exact replicas of some of the homes in my neighborhood, near Marine Park, as well as some of the Park Slope and Cobble Hill homes.

I'll make it clear that I'm not a New Yorker nor ever been to it in my entire life, you'll have the advantage in terms of knowledge and it's geography. However, New York has always attracted to me like no other American city has through it's history, culture, landmarks, and more. Sure it pertains to my love of gritty 70's New York crime dramas and police procedurals. I think for a lack of a better term, IV's Liberty City isn't suppose to represent a 1:1 scale of New York City, but rather a more condensed, yet authentic version of it. It's always in Rockstar's intent not to make it exactly like New York City, but it's own thing while still having that timeless NY feel.

Broker for example felt like home away from home, from Rockstar's recreation of Brighton Beach with it's Slavic dominated social lifestyle to Flatbush's Afro-Caribbean culture. It feels essentially very much Brooklyn, nailing it even, but Rockstar didn't really need to put every single detail of NYC because it's not supposed to be 100% accurate. Dan Houser himself says that:

"It's not the full city, it's an approximation thereof. We make a city that feels like the real thing, but is perfectly tuned for gameplay in the broadest sense. The world is not designed to be a video game. We are trying to make a video game that feels like the world, but still plays like a video game. The design of the city and the missions that unfold within it are designed hand-in-hand and complement each other perfectly. Everything in this world is here for a reason, where it is directly tied to gameplay or simply there to create atmosphere."

Which is why I felt that the game did a great job representing New York City through both from a realism and cinematic standpoint. Even if it very small and dense, I still felt that I'm apart of this virtual world, not as a passenger unlike Los Santos in GTA V. LC felt grandeur and massive, while Los Santos felt superficial and basic in comparison. Roaming around Los Santos felt like a chore compared to how depth and complex Liberty City felt to me. I always put immersion and the overall experience on the top of my GTA checklist. IV absolutely nailed it the first time I walked out of Roman's apartment the first time while in GTA V it took a while to engross myself within the world.

To be fair, Los Santos isn't that accurate geographically wise. My biggest criticism of V's Los Santos is it's lack of depth. On the other hand I think the city is beautifully crafted and eye-catching, but even if Los Santos is about the same size as Liberty City, it didn't feel as big as Liberty City does which is an issue because Los Angeles is very sprawling from Downtown to the coast while New York is very much condensed in comparison. I can drive from one side of the city to the other very quickly in V while I have to navigate my way through in IV in comparison.

Let me ask you a question, how does V's Los Santos much more immersive and broader than IV's to you? Maybe I can understand why you absolutely prefer it because I can't think of anything that makes LS superior in terms of enthrallment.

Edited May 8 by TheOneLibertonian

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ChiroVette
2,763

ChiroVette 2,763

To answer your last question first, TheOneLibertarian, the reason why Los Santos is more immersive to me is not because the city itself is better than NYC's rendition in IV, objectively or anything. It isn't. But there are many reasons actually. The first is something that is a little unfair, and not GTA IV's fault at all, but the graphics are much better in V's Los Santos. I said this first because it is the least important reason, though. The main reason I am more immersed in Los Santos than Liberty, even though the reverse should be true since I have been a New Yorker my whole life, is that I, quite simply, LOVE V and dislike IV. This has a lot to do with gameplay, story, physics, variety, and a whole list of things. For me, its a lot harder to get invested or immersed into a world in a game if I don't actually like the game very much. And believe me, back in 2008, seeing all the pictures of NY that blew my mind before IV was released, I REALLY wanted to love the game. I couldn't wait to drive across the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges in the game. Finally, as I have said many times, the "grey/brown" hue over everything really distracts me. I have tried setting the colors differently in the game AND on what I use for my computer monitor.

My 32" Sharp 1080p TV died like a week or two ago, so I had to replace it. I didn't want a regular monitor, so I ended up getting an amazing deal on a Sharp 43" 4K Roku TV. I couldn't pass that up, since it was only $299.99USD. It admittedly looks a little ridiculous in my bedroom to have that 43" monitor lol sitting just to the right on my computer desk, 5 inches away from my 55" bedroom TV, but whatever. Anyway, whenever I first started playing this game, I had to go into the TV settings every time, and kick up all the color and hue settings, play with the modes (like movie, vivid, etc.) in a desperate attempt to get the game to look more colorful, It was so bad I actually at first thought there was something wrong with the new TV. So I booted up some other games with vibrant colors and they were fine and as expected at the standard settings. I have since stopped doing that for the Episodes, though. Its a real chore to have to sit there and change the settings just for one game. Particularly since doing so makes the set look horrible for anything I do on the Internet or many other programs like MS Office and stuff.

I'll make it clear that I'm not a New Yorker nor ever been to it in my entire life, you'll have the advantage in terms of knowledge and it's geography. However, New York has always attracted to me like no other American city has through it's history, culture, landmarks, and more. Sure it pertains to my love of gritty 70's New York crime dramas and police procedurals. I think for a lack of a better term, IV's Liberty City isn't suppose to represent a 1:1 scale of New York City, but rather a more condensed, yet authentic version of it. It's always in Rockstar's intent not to make it exactly like New York City, but it's own thing while still having that timeless NY feel.

As I said, I am definitely aware of this and it is a sensible explanation. The problem I have, though, is that when everything is as close together as it is in this game, it stops feeling like a real city, when viewed in macrocosm, and feels like a "toy city" to me. When the structures I mentioned are all so close together in the game, like a few blocks away, when in some cases they are ten miles apart, it loses authenticity to me, as a New Yorker. It actually really distracts me (perhaps unfairly) that the Empire State Building is literally right up the block from the Manhattan Bridge, and that Central Park is just a few blocks north, with central park, the bridges, Broadway and the Theater District being right on top of one another. This is not necessarily fair, and I am not saying this makes the map bad or anything, only its effect on me personally, as someone who has lived in NYC my whole life. Also, something that REALLY REALLY irks me, and this is probably not very fair either, is why did Rockstar do such an amazing job in terms of the visuals on the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge, and even managed to render the Triborough Bridge beautifully but ignore the George Washington? This is something you may or may not know, but the Triborough Bridge is a sort of complex of several bridges that connects The Bronx to Queens, The Bronx to Manhattan, and also goes through Randall's Island. It is very impressive how Rockstar simulated that in a way NOBODY has ever done in a game before. BUT what bothers me is that with all of that, why did they just completely and totally bail on the George Washington Bridge? I would understand if they completely left it out, because you can't have everything in NY in the game, right? But on the West Side of Manhattan, the three connections to Jersey are the Holland Tunnel, Lincoln Tunnel, and the George Washington, in order from south to north.

Now they completely left out the Holland Tunnel, which is basically to the west of Chinatown and Little Italy, and that's perfectly fine, They only needed the one tunnel (and its funny they called it the Booth Tunnel, lol get it? Booth assassinated Lincoln?) So leaving that out made sense considering how small the game's version of Manhattan is. But instead of leaving out the GWB, they actually put the in game version of it in almost the EXACT place it is in Manhattan, but made it looks stupid and perfunctory, like someone just plopped some generic bridge in. And this makes NO SENSE to me. To spend such incredibly time crafting the other three bridges, and even meticulously mimic the Lincoln Tunnel in an incredibly detailed road pattern, and to just drop in some completely meh version of the GW?

I would actually have preferred they just left it out all together. I know that isn't entirely reasonable, but to not even try to simulate the GW Bridge even just a little, or hint at it? Hell, some of the Spider-Man games on the PS2 and PS3 that were not half the NY that IV renders had an actual GW Bridge in it. It just makes me roll my eyes every time I go from the game's upper Manhattan to North Jersey.

Which is why I felt that the game did a great job representing New York City through both from a realism and cinematic standpoint. Even if it very small and dense, I still felt that I'm apart of this virtual world, not as a passenger unlike Los Santos in GTA V. LC felt grandeur and massive, while Los Santos felt superficial and basic in comparison. Roaming around Los Santos felt like a chore compared to how depth and complex Liberty City felt to me. I always put immersion and the overall experience on the top of my GTA checklist. IV absolutely nailed it the first time I walked out of Roman's apartment the first time while in GTA V it took a while to engross myself within the world.

That is a fair statement, AND I am the first to say that my issues with the LC in IV are not entirely the fault of the game. As for Los Santos, it has the opposite effect on me that it does on you. LC, in fact, feels like a chore to explore to me, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that I feel like the driving, character motion, and gameplay are so clunky, clumsy, and non fluid, that my immersion is almost constantly broken by a game that feels like a very "high maintenance" girl to me. And, again, the colors totally kill it for me. LMAO NY does NOT look like that. If it did, I would have moved out years ago. There is something morbidly depressing about seeing everything in the game, except the cars, covered in a brownish/greyish haze.

To be fair, Los Santos isn't that accurate geographically wise. My biggest criticism of V's Los Santos is it's lack of depth. On the other hand I think the city is beautifully crafted and eye-catching, but even if Los Santos is about the same size as Liberty City, it didn't feel as big as Liberty City does which is an issue because Los Angeles is very sprawling from Downtown to the coast while New York is very much condensed in comparison. I can drive from one side of the city to the other very quickly in V while I have to navigate my way through in IV in comparison.

Well, again, part of it is the incredible graphics of V overall, but the colors are bright vibrant, and the visuals are just soooooo eye-catching. Plus the terrain is very varies. IV's visuals, as good as the city can actually feel in some ways, in terms of its NY vibe, also looks visually like a one-trick-pony. Other than tiny little versions of Prospect Park and Central Park in the game, it is all city. Even North Jersey, which in the real world has some BEAUTIFUL, green countryside, is represented by nothing but some industrial borough. It breaks immersion for me, because even in NY City it is very easy to get away from the city part, and I am talking even in many places in Manhattan. But you just can't get away from it in IV. The entire map, as well as they crafted the NYC vibe, really feels one dimensional to me.

Having mountains, small forest, suburban and urban areas of Hollywood and LA, as well as industrial areas of south LA and the ghettos of East LA really makes the map feel more authentic and immersive to me.

The thing about Los Santos is that if feels ALIVE and vibrant to me, filled with a myriad of different locales and landscapes, and everything is constantly changing, With LC, even though the city is remarkably interesting in some ways, it fails to capture the essence of NY City for me, which is a great deal more than just some urban jungle.

Edited May 8 by ChiroVette

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Son of Zeus
2,841

Son of Zeus 2,841

Nah GTA V has flaws but feels very much like a GTA game. I always disliked that fans limited the series. It happened with GTA IV especially which was bashed by silly fans who couldn't handle something darker and more serious.

And now that GTA V did some things differently (even though in many ways Rockstar was pandering directly to the SA fanbase lol) people say that as well. I think each game of the series had that GTA feel apart from Online (which isn't GTA anymore, its ridiculous & garbage) and I appreciate that Rockstar retains the identity of the series, unlike Ubisoft with AC for an example

Hmmm so anyone who bashes IV is a 'silly fan'.

IV was bashed because it had very little to do, not because it was more serious lol. RDR is a serious game and is loved...why? Because it has great gameplay unlike IV.

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TheOneLibertonian
4,201

TheOneLibertonian 4,201

Nah GTA V has flaws but feels very much like a GTA game. I always disliked that fans limited the series. It happened with GTA IV especially which was bashed by silly fans who couldn't handle something darker and more serious.

And now that GTA V did some things differently (even though in many ways Rockstar was pandering directly to the SA fanbase lol) people say that as well. I think each game of the series had that GTA feel apart from Online (which isn't GTA anymore, its ridiculous & garbage) and I appreciate that Rockstar retains the identity of the series, unlike Ubisoft with AC for an example

Hmmm so anyone who bashes IV is a 'silly fan'.

IV was bashed because it had very little to do, not because it was more serious lol. RDR is a serious game and is loved...why? Because it has great gameplay unlike IV.

He wasn't saying that anyone who dislikes or bashes IV is silly. That's like saying that people who criticize V or SA for being too over the top or zany are foolish or idiotic. Each person has their own opinions, and they have the right to do so. He was simply stating an example that fans sometimes can limit the artistic merit that Rockstar pushes with their games. Which is a valid point. Lastly, Journey was mostly being subjective with his post and if you read it again, he clearly praised Rockstar for retaining the series' identity with GTA V.

Edited May 9 by TheOneLibertonian

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Miamivicecity 36,904

Miamivicecity 36,904

If anything, IV feels more like a GTA clone to me, at least relative to other GTA games, anyway. Don't believe me?

If you have a PS2 or a PS3 (which is BC) go get yourself a copy of The Getaway! If you love GTA IV, you will enjoy that game a lot. GTA IV actually feels in many ways, like "A Getaway Clone." That game came out in 2002 and was doing realism crap 6 years before Rockstar even thought of it.

If someone told me that Team Soho was hired, en masse, as the dev team for GTA IV, I would believe it without question. Not just the driving, either. Slow, plodding, "realistically heavy" character movement of the protagonists in that game are VERY GTA IV'ish. Seriously, if you love GTA IV that much, go and get a copy of the FIRST Getaway game by team SOHO. I can't speak for the sequel of it, because I never played it.

I really can't say I agree with this comparison. Though it's been a good 15 or so years since I last played The Getaway the only thing I remember about it that I would compare it to GTA IV is maybe the atmosphere (Although London is a very different city to NYC so I'm no expert on this specifically). The game was alright, but I hardly loved it. Its sequel was utter sh*t however.

From what I remember The Getaway was one of those games that had an open world, but it was used more as back drop to the narrative. A bit like Mafia II, LA Noire etc. For all that people complain about GTA IV being restrictive it still knows it's a sandbox game. It has side missions and things the player can engage in outside of the story (whether people find it fun or not). The Getaway had none of those things. All I remember was driving from point to point in the story never taking a break from it. Maybe not everyone likes how GTA IV approaches a sandbox, but it's still world's apart from The Getaway's mostly ball busting approach.

With regards to realism....eh. I really don't like how this word gets thrown around, but anyway. In The Getaway I remember the protagonists after being shot they'd stumble around until they healed. Vehicles also had indicators and I think road rules were enforced? Not really sure on this one. Can't comment on movements, driving physics etc since it's been so long since I played it.

Honestly I've always believed R* were never out to try and make GTA IV more realistic. Only to compliment to the game world being much more authentic to the real NYC. They obviously felt the days of floating health icons, police bribes etc were over and it wouldn't have fitted GTA IV's more grounded and sensible atmosphere. GTA IV really isn't that realistic to me. It still obeys the laws of gameplay mechanics for the most part, but it's more akin to "oh hey yeah that makes some sense" instead of arousing a feeling of "WTF?" that I used to experience in the 3D era.

The difference between a game like The Getaway and GTA IV to me is The Getaway was definitely way more entrenched in the idea of "realism" whereas GTA IV was trying to modernise the GTA concept than necessarily trying to be more realistic.

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TheOneLibertonian
4,201

TheOneLibertonian 4,201

If anything, IV feels more like a GTA clone to me, at least relative to other GTA games, anyway. Don't believe me?

If you have a PS2 or a PS3 (which is BC) go get yourself a copy of The Getaway! If you love GTA IV, you will enjoy that game a lot. GTA IV actually feels in many ways, like "A Getaway Clone." That game came out in 2002 and was doing realism crap 6 years before Rockstar even thought of it.

If someone told me that Team Soho was hired, en masse, as the dev team for GTA IV, I would believe it without question. Not just the driving, either. Slow, plodding, "realistically heavy" character movement of the protagonists in that game are VERY GTA IV'ish. Seriously, if you love GTA IV that much, go and get a copy of the FIRST Getaway game by team SOHO. I can't speak for the sequel of it, because I never played it.

I really can't say I agree with this comparison. Though it's been a good 15 or so years since I last played The Getaway the only thing I remember about it that I would compare it to GTA IV is maybe the atmosphere (Although London is a very different city to NYC so I'm no expert on this specifically). The game was alright, but I hardly loved it. Its sequel was utter sh*t however.

From what I remember The Getaway was one of those games that had an open world, but it was used more as back drop to the narrative. A bit like Mafia II, LA Noire etc. For all that people complain about GTA IV being restrictive it still knows it's a sandbox game. It has side missions and things the player can engage in outside of the story (whether people find it fun or not). The Getaway had none of those things. All I remember was driving from point to point in the story never taking a break from it. Maybe not everyone likes how GTA IV approaches a sandbox, but it's still world's apart from The Getaway's mostly ball busting approach.

With regards to realism....eh. I really don't like how this word gets thrown around, but anyway. In The Getaway I remember the protagonists after being shot they'd stumble around until they healed. Vehicles also had indicators and I think road rules were enforced? Not really sure on this one. Can't comment on movements, driving physics etc since it's been so long since I played it.

Honestly I've always believed R* were never out to try and make GTA IV more realistic. Only to compliment to the game world being much more authentic to the real NYC. They obviously felt the days of floating health icons, police bribes etc were over and it wouldn't have fitted GTA IV's more grounded and sensible atmosphere. GTA IV really isn't that realistic to me. It still obeys the laws of gameplay mechanics for the most part, but it's more akin to "oh hey yeah that makes some sense" instead of arousing a feeling of "WTF?" that I used to experience in the 3D era.

The difference between a game like The Getaway and GTA IV to me is The Getaway was definitely way more entrenched in the idea of "realism" whereas GTA IV was trying to modernise the GTA concept than necessarily trying to be more realistic.

100% agreed. One thing that made GTA IV stand out from others for me is that it isn't necessarily realistic and it still is first and foremost a video game at heart, while being fresh and authentic at the same time. If anything, GTA IV raised the bar for the series by bringing something that unimaginable previously, a proper dynamic virtual world filled with a huge amount interactivity and side quests while bringing a gripping cinematic story on par with quasi open worlds like Mafia 1, or linear adventure games like Metal Gear Solid. It's very nuanced and more grown up than the 3D era games which are rather bizzare and feels very gamey, which detracts from the overall experience and often limits immersion. And GTA IV fixed all those problems that detached me from the 3D era. Like you said, it's more about being authentic rather than realistic and that's the reason why GTA IV is such a compelling experience.

Speaking about The Getaway, I barely played it when I was very young, and I can't remember much about it as well, but I think that while it is a good game with a sleek neo-noir crime thriller story and a great London setting, it's not really much alike with GTA IV. To be honest, it's structure and gameplay is more comparable to LA Noire with a focus on telling a story with an open world backdrop and the lack of HUD to enhance immersiveness. That's considering both of them are created by the same people and with that shared a lot of similarities.

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ChiroVette
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ChiroVette 2,763

You guys are misunderstanding what I mean in my comparisons of GTA IV to The Getaway. I wasn't talking about mission structure or the very linear structure of The Getaway. IV still retains at least some of the previous GTA's sanbox elements. I was referring to the constricting, restrictive physics they both share very much in common. Yes, IV had a lot more side missions as well as collectibles to do, which clearly Getaway lacked. The Getaway was very much a completely linear path through both the criminal and the cop's storylines, both occurring simultaneously in the narrative, each comprising half the game.

Where GTA IV feels like The Getaway is in the physics, both of character movement and driving, as well as how limited the "devices" or tools the player has at his or her disposal. In both games, the protagonists move like slow, plodding, clumsy elephant men. Car handling is meant to try and simulate the limitations of what real gate of a real person would have in real life. Both games try to make cars handle a lot more clumsy and finicky than 3D Era GTA games. Both games limit the core gameplay mechanics, though, as you say, IV does have more side stuff to do. I am not saying the games are exactly the same, only that there is a commonality of how the game plays when the player has a controller in his hand. Both games are meant to strip the kinds of wild freedom from the player, and presume that people want that. In IV's case, I guess some people do, which is probably why we have all the arguments in this forum.

But THANK GOD Rockstar went away from that paradigm that both The Getaway and IV share in common, and they lifted so many restrictions to put a lot of fun back into GTA that went missing in IV for me and so many others. IV may be what you might call "A good Crime Sim," but V is a fantastic game, that is much more balanced toward fun AND well rounded. For me, IV (and The Episodes) simply can never get out of their own way. And more importantly, out of my way. As a player, soldiering through the Episodes, and thankfully, I am almost done, that is the thing that strikes me as most obvious. The pomposity of the game, probably due to Rage/Euphoria, and the feeling that the game simply won't get out of my way and let me have some fun.

Yes, I can drive in the game(s). I can out-drive the AI every time, whether racing in a Triathalon with Luis, getting away from the cops in both games, one of the 12 bike races with Johnny, out-maneuvering AI in Drug Wars or Gang Wars, or whatever. But it isn't any fun. There is NO PERCEPTION of breakneck speed. The cars, like the protagonists, need to be babied and cajoled to do what I want them to do. Trying to run with these characters as they bop up and down and "jog" rather than actually run is infuriating. IV is like a very high maintenance girlfriend trying to have a stranglehold on me, trying to restrict my freedom, limit my fun, and is constantly trying to tell me what I can and cannot do, rather than just being a fun date. lol

In IV and the Episodes, everything happens so slow and plodding, and it all feels so clumsy and agonizingly limiting.

And you cannot keep denying that IV was Rockstar's attempt at realism. You guys are completely taking me out of context regarding realism. NO GAME in the history of videogames has ever been realistic. If it was, you would have to wake your character up, shave, shower, brush his teeth, sit down for 20 minutes for breakfast, retrieve and the morning paper, and it would be an hour before you took your protagonist out of his or her house to walk to the car. But there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Houser wanted IV to be as realistic as he and his team could make the game. I mean, LMAO that's all he talked about in all the interviews, how "realistic" IV was compared to other games and other GTA games. Why weren't there bicycles, jet packs, and a ton of other cool stuff from San Andreas? When asked about that, his answer was that it wouldn't be believable for Niko, a new immigrant to have all of that. Believable being yet another way of saying "realism." I have said this SO MANY times I am amazed I have to repeat it. IV tries to be realistic. It tries to be a "Crime Sim" or a "movie game," two terms that Houser also used a lot way back in 2008. Houser felt, and I patently disagree, that most players wanted to feel like they were playing a realistic movie. At least as realistic as a videogame could ever be. He thought that what people really wanted was NOT the unbridled fun of San Andreas, but instead, what I would call oppressive limitations on what the player can and cannot do in a story-driven narrative of a game.

Look all I can say is THANK GOD Rockstar learned from their mistakes! Or what I consider mistakes. V may not bring back physics that are as much fun as, say San Andreas, but I can see that the game does at least succeed in compromising. Yes, I still don't like the way the characters move, compared to Tommy, CJ, Fido, Tony, and Victor, BUT they can at least run now, and the compromise gives them a lot more fluidity in their motion than Niko, Johnny, and Luis.

Also the cover system in IV and the Episodes is an abomination. It s a real struggle to get Luis and Johnny to work effectively in cover, the way that Michael, Trevor, and Franklin now can. So V also improved this immeasurably.

I also find the gunplay in IV and the episodes to be more like "gun-work" than gunplay. It is slow, methodical, boring, and lacks any sense of Adrenalin and excitement, the way that I get from V. When I am in a firefight in V, I am laughing, smiling, on the edge of my seat, and really feeling the blood pumping. To give one of many examples:

I just finished the mission In the Crosshairsfor Bulgarin. The first time I tried it, I forgot for a moment what game I was playing, thinking it was going to be exciting with all the roof snipers and enemies. So that first time, I failed it because I was trying to, ya know, have some fun! lol Silly me. So I rebooted the save (not wanting to have a mission failed in my stats) and did it again, only this time, played it the way the overbearing game wanted me to. I have to tell you that what could have been an insanely fun, Adrenalin-packed, wild ride (even I could see the potential in missions like that in IV/Episodes) was nothing but a pompous, slow, boring-ass, methodical crawl through the snipers (the easy part) and taking baby steps from one roof to the other while I dispatched hoards of obnoxiously buffed enemies firing ridiculous amounts of bullets and lobbing grenades at me. Was I able to do it and was I more than a match for the AI? Yes and yes. But that's not the point.

I mean, this mission could have been SO MUCH F*CKING FUN! But, and I apologize for the Snore reference, I could barely summon the will to stay awake through it. I actually almost failed it out of sheer, bored, impatience. Because I just wanted it to be freaking over already!

This is my problem with IV and the Episodes. They feel pretentious, snobby, and preachy to me, like Rockstar decided to condescend to tell GTA fans, "Well, little children. You must eat your supper before you can have desert! You must do your homework and your chores before you can get your little snacks and go out and play!" You know what? F*ck that! The videogame is supposed to BE my desert, and my snack, and my fun. I did all my work while I was, ya know, working. I play videogames because they ARE supposed to be the fun part of my day. When a game slows me down, and forces me to crawl through the most boring chores to get at the chewy, flavorful center, I have a real problem with that.